INSIDE MASSACRE NEWSROOM
Blood-soaked papers strewn across office, but magazine plans to print million copies in defiance
WITH blood spilt on sketch papers and stained in footprints on the floor, this is the awful aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
The first photograph of the office shows the utter devastation caused when Islamic fanatics stormed the magazine’s offices as its journalists met to discuss a conference on racism.
In the chaos which followed, the office was turned upside down. This shocking image was published online last night by France’s Le Monde newspaper.
The picture was taken at the office of Charlie Hebdo at No 10, Rue Nicolas-Appert in the historic Le Marais district of Paris.
The photograph shows chairs overturned by a large puddle of blood, under five cartoons stuck to the wall. Someone’s jacket is still hanging over the back of a chair, beside a discarded mug.
Papers can be seen strewn across the ground, covered in the blood of those who had been working on them hours earlier.
Newspapers and books can also be seen on the floor, while some appear to have been sketched on. In the mayhem, they appear to have been trampled on, with blood-covered shoes staining them red.
And like countless other offices, notes and cards adorn a corridor wall. But here, police tape has also been attached to a door.
One of the cartoons on the wall appears to be the sketch for the controversial ‘Sharia Hebdo’ front page, which sparked the previous terrorist attack in November 2011.
The firebomb – which destroyed the magazine’s computer system but failed to injure anyone – came after the publication ran an issue supposedly guest-edited by Mohammed, containing cartoons of the Muslim prophet and the slogan: ‘100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter’.
After the attack the publication responded in the way it knows best. On the front of its next edition, it ran a cartoon of a French illustrator passionately kissing a bearded Muslim, with the headline ‘L’amour plus fort que la haine’ (‘Love is stronger than hate’).
And despite the fact that the attack forced
‘We will write the magazine with our tears’
him to live under police guard, editor Stephane Charbonnier, 47, who was murdered on Wednesday, said at the time: ‘I am not afraid of retaliation. I’d rather die standing than live on my knees.’
Yesterday, the magazine continued to show its defiance, announcing that it would run a special edition next week – and would massively increase its print run, from 60,000 copies to one million.
Amid speculation that the cover image could be more provocative than ever, former editor Philippe Val declared: ‘We will never stop laughing. We must let people laugh. We must let them ridicule the bastards.’
Yesterday the Charlie Hebdo staff who survived pledged to create next week’s edition in memory of their colleagues and ‘write it with our tears’.
The issue will be eight pages, rather than the usual 16. Other media outlets in France said they would give the journalists all the equipment and resources they need.
The magazine is due to be published on Wednesday, a week after the Al Qaeda terrorists attacked their offices, killing a guest editor, three cartoonists, two columnists, a sub- editor and Mr Charbonnier.
Mr Val, who edited the magazine before Mr Charbonnier and was his mentor, said yesterday: ‘ We have laughed so much, we must continue to laugh. It is difficult today but it’s the absolute weapon, laughing.’
He went on to describe the attack as an ‘act of war’, adding: ‘ Our country will never be the same.
‘A certain kind of journalism has been wiped out. Those who have been exterminated were all people capable of causing laughter with serious ideas.’
He went on to say: ‘It’s a terrible grief that falls on us, but we can’t let silence win.
‘Terrorism must not get in the way of the joy of living, the freedom of expression. We must say what we feel, we must say what we think. We will never accept this, that we will never stop laughing. Our freedom, we can’t abandon that.’
Paying tribute to his colleagues, he said: ‘Today I am practically all alone, all my friends are gone. And this was not for a bad cause, it was so that we all could live, so that kids were free to come and go, and say silly things, without danger. I’m in very bad shape. But that’s normal, right? I lost all my friends.
‘They were absolutely wonderful people. They cared so much about bringing joy to people, making them laugh. They were people who just wanted to live happily, who wanted to grant humour its place in life. That’s all, it’s just that, and that’s what’s been murdered.’
Columnist Patrick Pelloux said their work had to continue to show ‘stupidity will not win’.
He explained that as Charlie Hebdo’s offices were not accessible, they would produce it elsewhere.
‘It’s very hard,’ he said. ‘We are all suffering, with grief, with fear, but we will do it anyway. They were extraordinary men and women. They were killed during a meeting discussing a conference on the fight against racism. Voila.
‘The magazine will continue. We won’t stop. We have to put together an even better paper, I don’t know how. But we’ll do it. We’ll write it with our tears, but we’ll write it. We don’t have the right to give in.’